Major features of Sundadonty and Sinodonty, including suggestions about East Asian microevolution, population history, and late Pleistocene relationships with Australian Aboriginals

Abstract

Abstract The eight diagnostic morphological traits of the Sundadont and Sinodont divisions of the Mongoloid dental complex are identified. Intra‐and intergroup variation for these crown and root features is plotted. The univariate frequency distributions provide useful evidence for several suggestions about East Asian prehistory, dental microevolution, and intergroup relationships. The case for local evolution of Sundadonty is strengthened by finding Australian teeth to be very similar to this pattern. Australian Aboriginal teeth are also generally like those of Jomonese and some Ainus, suggesting that members of the late Pleistocene Sundaland population could have initially colonized Sahulland as well as the continental shelf of East Asia northward to Hokkaido.